Are You creeping Women Out With Your Approach?

May 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Are you ready for some knowledge bombs?

The other day on Reddit there was a very poignant response to a post about how women feel when men cat call or say overly sexual things out of the blue. Here’s the full post verbatim, and I think it makes some great insights in how women view the world, and how to start a conversation with a women you don’t know.

Sit back – this is gonna be long.

You have to understand – this isn’t just mindless fear coming from nowhere. This isn’t media-driven. This fear comes from a million interactions with men over a lifetime – men who go too far and feel that it’s ok to touch/grope and otherwise threaten you (and of course, rape, at the far end of the spectrum).

This starts early – bra snapping, for instance. I’m not saying it’s sexual assault for a young guy to snap a young girl’s bra, but it’s intrusive, unwanted, humiliating and painful. Somehow, these boys think it’s ok or even funny to do this. It’s objectifying and implies that these boys think a girl’s body/underwear are his to do with as he pleases.

I remember in 8th grade Flashdance was a huge movie (yes, I’m old). I was wearing – as a lot of girls were – a sweatshirt that was cut out at the neck, so one shoulder was exposed (like the lead character in the movie). I didn’t think anything of how I looked, I just wanted to wear a Flashdance sweatshirt. That day, a boy I had never spoken to sneered at me and said “You’re just wearing that so everyone looks at your boobs.” He was angry. I have never been so humiliated before or since. I was 12 and I had no concept that someone might be looking at my breasts, or that someone would wear a shirt just to make that happen.

The thing that burned that interaction on my brain though, and makes it a propos, was his anger about it. Like I was trying to fuck with him. It’s the same anger that comes through loud and clear when some guy yells “Hey, nice tits.”

In Jr. high/high school we all start to learn about the unexpected grope. About the guy who slips his hand on your chair so you sit on it, then laughs with all his friends. About the hard pinch on your ass in the hallway, or the straight up grab both your breasts move. Again, mocking, angry laughter with the guy’s friends usually accompanies these things.

Are you starting to get the picture?

High school is usually also when men (often much older men) start to drive very slowly next to us, trying to “talk” to us and get us in the car.

There are so many many more examples. Guys grinding on you in the club. Guys jerking off next to you on the bus, guys cornering you on the street. Guys and their friends forming a circle around you and you barely escape.

Here’s another good one from my own memory banks. I was a senior in high school and went to a college party with a friend. We were both gothy girls and my friend called herself a “witch.” One of the guys at the party asked her about the pentagram she was wearing, she told him she was a witch, and he started to get really belligerent. His friends joined in, taunting us both and saying we were devil worshipers. Then shit got scary – he and his friend picked up pool cues and said they were going to shove them so far up us they’d get the devil out. They tried to grab us, we shoved past them and ran.

Are you starting to understand why strange men talking to you on the street is so threatening?

I’ve had guys follow me home from work. There was one guy who lived at a halfway house at the end of my block who used to wait for me to get off the bus so he could leer at me and say all sorts of disgusting shit.

Thankfully, most of this has stopped now that I’m a mom and middle aged – that makes me pretty much invisible to men (it’s actually kind of funny how invisible I am now!) But — as recently as 2 years ago when I was 7 months pregnant there were guys who would yell shit at me.

Oh, and I’m just an average-looking woman.

All this to say – there’s a long history for most women of harassment, straight up assault, possibly rape that has us all in a constant state of alert. So, keep that in mind if you want to meet a girl you see on the street.

Don’t act threatening. Don’t follow her. If she seems freaked out, stop trying to talk to her. Your best bet is NOT to compliment her on her appearance. Strike up a conversation about something else. Say something funny. Talk about the weather. Comment on what’s in her shopping cart. ANYTHING but her appearance (that includes asking about tattoos, piercings, etc). That’s just a giant red flag. And then, if she seems friendly, keep talking for a bit – like a friendly person, not someone who wants to get laid. And then – give her your number and ask if she’d like to get coffee sometime.

There is NO REASON for a man to talk to a woman about her appearance if he doesn’t know her. It’s intrusive, even if it’s just “you look nice today.” Why can’t you just think that, and keep it to yourself? Why do you feel the need to make her know that you think she’s attractive? That’s all about your wants and your needs and nothing at all to do with her.

So again I say, if you want to talk to a woman you’ve never met, talk about anything else but what she looks like.

I’ve had a long-standing theory that women, even average looking women, experience a fundamentally different social experience than men. Most guys have little-no game when it comes to talking to women, and as such are supplicative, needy, pushy, and sometimes aggressive in some attempt to get a women to like them.

This all leads to two different types of social experience that most men simply can’t fathom, because its so far out of their normal experience with things. They simply don’t understand how many times a day the average girl is hit on, bought things, and generally viewed as a sexual object. Judging from the many women I’ve talked to about this over the years, it happens several times a day, every day. Combined with the fact most men take for granted that they’re 1.5-2.5 times the size and weight of your average girl, and all of a sudden you start having incidents like the ones described above.

And THEN there’s this whole cycle where some guy doing some combination of the aforementioned actions gets rejected by a girl he’s interested in, and he starts to generalize that feeling of rejection to other women. Pretty soon you’re deep into a vicious cycle of misunderstanding and sexual frustration that leads to more insecure behavior on the part of men everywhere, which they then project onto the women they meet.

As the saying goes, “hurt people hurt people.”

Anyways, as I read it there are a few takeaways here:

  • SMILE. When you approach a woman you might seem a lot more threatening than you think. As a guy with solid inner game, there’s nothing wrong with showing a woman you just met that you’re sexually attracted to her- in fact, I’d argue you need to show some sexual attraction from the start. However you need warm and friendly body language to make her feel comfortable and not-threatened.
  • Women get a lot more attention (especially sexual attention) than most men think. You need to set yourself apart from the masses by a) strategically withholding attention and NOT being that supplicative, needy guy or b) give her attention in a unique way that she’s never seen before. As legendary entrepreneur Seth Godin says- “Be remarkable.”
  • I disagree that you shouldn’t compliment a woman on her looks. I do it all the time, but in a quirky, nonthreatening way. I like to make random jokes like “you look really cute in those shoes… I almost bought the EXACT SAME pair last week!” or “you have beautiful eyes… can I touch them?” This is kind of like classic-push/pull where you reel a girl in with a compliment and diffuse the tension with the random joke or follow up. The point here is you must actually release the tension otherwise she’ll be creeped out.
If you want to learn how to stop creeping women out and give them the right type of attention then look no further. The Tao of Badass helped me reframe my view of the world and specifically how I interacted with women. It worked for me, and I’m confident it can help you too.

I’d love to get your guys’ thoughts on this and if there are any women reading PLEASE share your experience in the comments. The whole point of this blog is to help guys understand male/female relationships, and a feminine perspective would be greatly appreciated.

 

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How to Beat Approach Anxiety Once and for All

May 19, 2012 By 2 Comments

We’ve all been there.

You see a cute girl slide up to the bar a few feet away from you. You know you should say something, anything. So you take a few deep breaths, center your chi, think of a few things to say aaaaand… never actually approach. Maybe she left before you finished psyching yourself up, maybe another guy started talking to her first, or maybe you just talked yourself out of it in those few seconds of thinking about it at the bar.

After all, nobody likes rejection. Approaching a hot girl is putting yourself out there and making yourself vulnerable to a complete stranger isn’t easy, and no matter how good you get you ARE going to face rejection.

Well let me tell you- as a guy who’s gotten pretty good at attracting women, approach anxiety is never going to go away. The internal tension you feel when you see a hot girl is always going to rear its ugly head. The only thing that changes as you get more experienced is how you deal with and manage that tension. It’s like they say:

Here’s my 6 tips to dealing with and overcoming approach anxiety in any situation.

1. Embrace the tension

Rejection sucks. The best pick up artists all admit to feeling intimidated by those high quality women we all want to attract. The difference between the newbies and the gurus is their attitude toward this tension. Newbies run from it and avoid tension in their lives; guys with solid inner game realize that tension is a vital part of living an interesting life.

You know what’s a great way to never feel any tension in your life? Work in a comfortable job that pays a moderate salary, and spend most nights sitting on your couch playing video games instead of going outside your comfort zone.

Tension is a healthy thing- it reminds us we’re alive. Instead of running from the anxiety and nervousness you feel when you think about approaching a girl, take a moment and really feel that anxiety inside you, smile, and go in for it anyways. Just by approaching you’ve already accomplished more than 90% of the guys out there.

Donald Glover, being correct.

2. Recognize your social skills are fluid

Some days you just aren’t in the right mood to be your most social self. It could be a rough week at work, drama in your personal life, or just that you’re particularly tired or out of it one night. The point is some days you’re just ON and can talk to anyone and other days you can’t keep up a conversation if your life depended on it. This doesn’t mean you’re only as good as you are on your worst days- we all have off days.

The problem is, so many guys let that get in their heads and they internalize having an off day as being bad with women. “I couldn’t even talk to the fat chick at work today, I suck at picking up women.” Remember, learning to be attractive doesn’t happen overnight, or even over a few weeks or months. It’s something you work on over the course of a lifetime, and you never really stop learning. As you keep improving you’ll have less and less “off” days so even if yesterday was crappy, today is a new chance to absolutely rock.

3. Start being social EVERYWHERE

If you want to be social at the bars Friday night, then you need to be more social every day of the week.

Approach anxiety doesn’t start the moment you see a hot girl. It’s something many guys face every waking moment of their lives, they just don’t realize it because they’re not always trying to attract women. The problem is, if you work a crappy desk job 40 hours a week, and stay mostly quiet or shut in until the weekends, then how can you expect to magically become the attractive, outgoing alpha male the second 6:00PM Friday night rolls around?

Getting over approach anxiety starts the moment you wake up- say hi to your neighbor as you leave for work. Start a conversation with a stranger at the office or at school. Smile at the cute girl in line at lunch. The little actions you choose to do (or not do) throughout the day build up momentum and create your “state.” If you’re having trouble being social at the bar, then make a point to start at least 10-20 conversations throughout the day before you go out.

Your subconscious will see how outgoing you’re being, and the small successes in making someone laugh or making a cute girl smile will build up and inspire confidence in your ability to approach once you’re in the club. You can’t fool your subconscious mind, so start forcing yourself to be social every chance you get and you’ll be surprised at how natural approaching becomes over time.

4. Look for little successes

Many guys feel they’re “only as good as their last approach.” For this type of guy it doesn’t matter if he went home with a Playboy Bunny last night; if that semi-cute girl at the bar rejects him tonight he’ll go home feeling absolutely worthless. Even if you make 10 approaches and only get 1 positive response, then recognize that success for what it is. It can be hard not to focus on the 9 failures but think about it- at the end of the night you only need 1 girl to say “yes” so don’t get your panties in a bunch if you seem to be striking out early on.

5. Focus on the process and not on the outcomes

I picked this up from my time studying Brazilian jiu Jitsu. As a white belt I constantly got my ass kicked by higher belt ranks. In fact for the first 6 months I didn’t win a single fight; I showed up 3x a week and got choked, arm-barred, and crushed repeatedly. All you can do is trust the process of training and ignore the fact that you’re getting your ass kicked up and down the floor.

Most guys define success at a bar by the phone numbers they get, or if they go home with a girl at the end of the night. Recognize that approaching in itself is a huge positive because most guys don’t even have the balls to start a conversation with a hot girl. By sacking up and approaching you’re improving your skills, even if your sets aren’t going anywhere. Once you realize this the sting of rejection suddenly isn’t so bad, because it really doesn’t matter if you succeed with any one girl- you’re building skills that will last a lifetime.

6. Realize she’s not rejecting you

She might just be in a relationship. Or on a girls night out. Or she might only be into black guys. Whatever.

The point is a lot of guys take “no” personally, as in the girl is rejecting them as a person. Guys let me say- she just might not be feelin’ it that night. You could be Brad Pitt and approach her and she’s just not having any of it because of whatever she’s feeling. So don’t beat yourself up when a girl says no- just chalk it up and move on.

 

Those 6 tips are what helped me deal with my approach anxiety. I still feel it almost every night I go out, but I just shrug it off and recognize that I’m getting better with every approach, regardless of what she says.

What are your best tips for dealing with approach anxiety? Share it up in the comments =D

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How to Magnetically Attract Any Woman

May 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

“You’re not my type.”

“Uhh… what?”

“Sorry, but I’m just not attracted to you. You’re not my type.”

“Oh. My bad.”

That combination of words has stung more men than just about any other phrase in the English language, with the exception of “let’s just be friends.” They especially stung coming from the lips of this girl Erika I’d been flirting with for a week or two prior to that exchange. What I’m about to tell you will ensure you’ll never hear those words again for the rest of your life.

Friend zoning: don't let it happen to you.

This was several years ago as I was just starting to develop any sort of ability to attract women. I’d been doing pretty successful actually- I had hooked up with a different girl each weekend for the 2 weeks prior to flirting with Erika. This sort of success was unheard of for me at the time, and as a result I was feeling pretty confident in my ability to attract women.

So as you can imagine, my ego took a pretty hard fall when I heard those four words: “you’re not my type.”

For several months following this incident I refused to get over it. I should have simply chalked it up as a learning experience and gotten over her, but instead I did the worst thing I could have done: internalized the experience by endlessly thinking about it.

“I should have bantered and built more attraction before making my move like that.”

“Maybe if I was more attractive and in better shape she wouldn’t have shot me down.”

“Next time I’ll say X to her to win her over…”

Sound familiar?

When Erika told me I wasn’t her type I kept thinking about what her “type” was and how I could fit myself into that mold. What drove me even crazier was the guys I had seen her hook up with were like me- young, athletic, middle class white guys that wore too-tight Abercrombie shirts and high-fived way too much. What did they have that I didn’t?

Obviously- I couldn’t have been more WRONG in how I handled things. In fact, despite my two successes leading up to this “failure” with Erika, I went on to have a four month dry spell. Can you pinpoint specifically where I went wrong?

Yes, I was being needy/approval seeking and had a scarcity mindset, but those are both symptoms of a deeper problem: I was defining myself based on what other people thought about me, or rather what I THOUGHT other people thought about me. In other words, I was externally validating.

How to get away from external validation

I’ve said this a lot here at Inner Game Attraction, and I’ll keep saying it until guys everywhere get it: the secret to developing rock-solid inner game is to figure out your life purpose and what steps you need to take to achieve that purpose. A man that knows why he’s here and where he’s going isn’t swayed by little shit like whether or not some girl approves or finds him attractive. He’s too busy getting shit done and creating a life worth living. It’s this attitude about making your life as badass as possible that will have women coming out of the woodwork to hit on you.

Finding your purpose can be a daunting task when you first think about it, but really it isn’t as tough as it seems. Try the following exercises to get on the right track and after a few weeks you’ll start to see some major changes in your life:

Focus on the positive

A big lesson learned from my story with Erika was not to let one negative interaction get inside my head. I had hooked up with two equally fun and cute girls in the weeks before flirting with Erika- a HUGE accomplishment for me at the time. And what did I focus on? There’s a saying characteristic of guys with great outer game but no inner that goes:

“you’re only as good as your last lay.”

I had adopted this poisonous mindset and was letting a single rejection define me as a person and also as a man. Take a few minutes and write down some recent things you’ve done and frame them in the positive. Ask yourself “why am I so great at X?” or “What makes me so attractive to women?” And then think of some reasons why.

Are you making a living, or a life?

A lot of guys have terrible inner game because they hate their jobs. Being forced to spend 40+ hours a week doing something you hate makes it tough to be excited for the other parts of your life. Guys who hate what they spend the bulk of their time doing try to make up for it with things- suits, cars, bottle service at clubs. But like my buddy Santiago said: “a fast car that drives me to a job I hate is doing me no favors.”

If your life looks like this you need to do some thinking.

These guys think that the more cool stuff they have, they’ll gain admiration from others and finally have their choice of women. Sadly, the only women they’ll ever get to choose from are equally shallow, only interested in status or money. If you want to attract a truly goddess-like woman that’s beautiful, fun, AND interesting then you need to re-examine your job.

Know when to call in the experts

Sometimes the best way to figure out what’s keeping you back in developing your inner game is to talk and listen to other guys who have walked the walk. The pickup podcast by AJ and Jordan Harbinger is a great free resource for guys looking to learn from other top inner game gurus. I also like what Joshua Pellicer has to say in his the Tao of Badass program. Josh is onto some good stuff with how to quickly bring your inner game up to badass levels and is a great guy to boot.

Anyways…

To bring things full circle, two weeks ago I started casually seeing this cute girl named Aimee who keeps telling me “you’re not my type.” Aimee is a white girl that’s into asian culture – and men – and I’m actually only the 2nd white guy she’s ever been with. And every time after we hook up, she finds some way to mention “you’re not my type,” almost as if she’s trying to figure out what just happened.

I just smile and nod. I know what happened.

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Changing Your Inner Voice

May 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

One of the cardinal rules to Inner Game development is to never underestimate the power of your own thoughts. The hectic, stressful and complicated lives we often lead can fool us into thinking that our emotions can be permanently contained within a few cubic inches of our cranium. In our culture, most of us boys were trained from early childhood to hide and suppress feelings of discontent under threat of ridicule if you happened to show any vulnerability in your character.

For a lot of guys out there, this cycle of hiding, containing and suppressing these discontented feelings continues into adulthood. Generally it is not acceptable for us guys to show some of our true feelings, so they remain bottled up inside our head. These negative feelings start to fester, and infect increasingly greater portions of our conscious thoughts. When all the bad stuff floating around in our noggins is too much to bare, we start to act out in one way or another. In attempt to escape the beast living inside our head we turn to drugs, alcohol, food, living in fantasy or completely spiral out of control in a fit of depression or rage.

Is there a way to stop this cycle of building up bad emotions only to end up exploding like Mount St. Helens? Absolutely.

Give your feelings the respect they deserve

The first thing an emotionally troubled guy has to do is start giving their feelings more respect. We can’t just feel an emotion, shrug, and haphazardly throw it in a box never to be seen again, even though we can fool ourselves into believing that will make the feeling go away. Our emotions have a way of creeping back, and start to affect the way we think about ourselves; they re-manifest to become our inner voice, also known as our conscious thoughts.

Believe it or not, we always end up attracting the reality we are thinking in our heads. It is a subtle, but entirely real phenomenon. If your mind is incessantly dwelling on negative thoughts, you will continually find yourself around negative people and negative situations. The opposite is also true. If you are feeling great, you will start to attract the positive things into your life.

Start to realize the true power of your emotions. They are the driving force behind the reality you live every single moment, so you should give them the respect they deserve.

Take time to reflect

How do you give emotions respect? You reflect! A cool mnemonic device if I do say so myself.

Instead of trying to throw your bad feelings into a box, you need to get to the true source of why you feel uncomfortable. Before you pop your favorite anti-depressant (which I like to call a depressive suppressant, because I firmly believe they DO NOT actually solve your problems) think about the source of those bad feelings. Are you upset with your relationships? A job? A lack of ability in some area?

Take time to pinpoint what is making you hurt inside, and reflect on constructive ways you can cure the emotional pain. Yes, that’s a tall order. If you are accustomed to a cycle of bottling up bad feelings and drowning them in mind-altering drugs or other hedonistic pursuits you have a long road to travel. You must accept you need to improve your character, and believe that the long road to improving your Inner Game is one worth traveling. We all have our own very specific inner-battles. There are no easy answers.

Love yourself

If you are looking to improve your Inner Game because your love life is on the rocks, you need to learn how to truly love yourself.  How can anyone else love you if you don’t love yourself first? Start genuinely accepting yourself for who you are, what makes you special and love yourself for it.

If you hate yourself and are constantly criticizing who you are and telling yourself things like: “I hate myself.” “Why am I so fucking stupid all the time?” and “I never do anything right.” You will attract people, relationships and other situations into your life that will re-enforce those beliefs.

STOP.

For most of my life I was guilty of talking to myself this way, and was quite depressed. To start loving myself, and to start attracting happiness and abundance into my life I began doing a simple exercise that sounds crazy, but it works.

Every morning, find yourself a mirror and look at yourself directly in the eyes and smile. Say “I love you.” to yourself in the mirror. Repeat as many times as necessary until you start feeling love and positive energy flowing through your mind and body. This is Oxytocin for all you science types out there who don’t want to hear any ‘metaphysical bullshit.’ Its a real chemical that naturally resides in everyone’s heads, and its also an anti-depressant that actually works.

Ask positive questions of yourself

This is another trick I did to change my own inner voice. It is a way of re-framing the negative, destructive questions I was asking myself like: “Why are no girls ever interested in me?” “Why am I so lazy?”

Note that destructive questions like these put your logical, egotistical brain on a quest to find the answers. Your brain is now on a feedback loop to spit out negative answers which confirm the negative opinions you have of yourself.

Instead, take whatever negative questions you are reflexively asking yourself and turn them into positive questions. So, I started flipping any of my negative questions and opinions of myself upside down. I began asking myself: “Why are girls so magnetically attracted to me?” and “Why do I have such a ridiculous abundance of energy to accomplish anything I want to?”

Create questions in the form of: ‘Why am I so great at _____(positive action)?’ ‘How come I am so awesome at _____(positive ability)?’ You get the idea.  Replace the negative feedback loops of questions and answers in your head with its positive polar opposite.

Try it now.

Take out the head trash

Recognize ungrounded bad thoughts for what they are. Trash.

So many guys out there suffer from believing negative things that are  completely untrue about themselves. When you have a self-deprecating opinion of yourself, step back and ask yourself if it is actually true. Is that just your opinion or an actual fact? Again, take time to reflect.

Sure, we all have our actual shortcomings; nobody is perfect. However, when you take a step back you will realize far more of your perceived problems have to do with a bad self-esteem rather than actual concrete problems. This way you can effectively sort out the actual things you need to work on, versus the ridiculous negative things you imagine about yourself.

Once you start recognizing bad opinions of yourself that have no grounding in reality, laugh at them. This is your head trash. Laugh at how ridiculous it was for you to believe that these horrid things were actually true. Laughter makes you feel good, and takes away the power this negative opinion had on you. Humor is a very effective way to throw out your head trash.

Be Grateful

During your reflective moments list all of the positive things you have going in your life, and be thankful for each one of them. Every time you think of something you are thankful for say ‘thank you’ out loud. If you are a spiritual person say ‘Thank you’ to your god or gods. Even if you are a complete atheist say ‘thank you’ out loud anyways because saying it will naturally inspire feelings of positive gratitude.

On those rough days, when it seems impossible to say ‘thank you’ for anything in particular, say it anyways. At the very least, be thankful that you are alive, be thankful that you are going to live this day to improve yourself and be thankful that you are thankful, because so many people are not.

When we are thinking about things we are thankful for, we are thinking about positive things and displacing our negative emotions.

Each day we have is a gift. Be thankful for it.

 

 

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How to Stay Motivated and Achieve Your Goals With Women

May 3, 2012 By 1 Comment

Ever wonder why you start off strong when trying to make a change in your life, only to lose your drive within a matter of weeks? One day you’re determined and kicking ass, the next day it’s a chore to do the thing you know you should be doing.

It could be you trying to get better with girls, weight you’re trying to lose, or a business you’re trying to build. The end goal can be anything important to you and your journey for inner game, it doesn’t matter. Some days it seems effortless to stick to your plan and other days it feels like everything is stacked against you, no matter how hard you try to motivate yourself.

“Yeah but it’s Sarah’s birthday today and she brought a cake in for the office, I guess I can break my diet this once.”

or

“Nah I’m not really feeling that social tonight. I’m gonna stay in and watch some Netflix.”

These are the days you make excuses and listen to that little voice inside your head that tries to prevent you from succeeding. Here’s how to shut that little fucker up and take control: use push and pull motivators.

Push and pull motivators

Think back to when you first start any new pursuit. I like to use dieting  as an example because it’s such a common frustration for a lot of guys, but this obviously applies to pickup and social dynamics as well.

Think back to the last time you made a resolution to get better at something: what made you start in the first place? Did you look in the mirror one day and realize you needed to lose some weight? Or maybe you got rejected by a girl and you vowed to get better with women. This is called a push motivator and is any state or experience you want to push yourself away from. This is how the majority of people motivate themselves and it works great!

…at first.

With push motivators you’re really fired up at the beginning because the push stimulus is so prominent in your mind. But as you start to improve and time passes the sting of the push motivator starts to fade, and so does your energy and motivation.

Push motivators lose effectiveness over time... unless it's a T-rex chasing you.

 

As you probably guessed, a pull motivator is a goal that inspires you to achieve it. It’s not something you should ever feel you have to work for; a true pull motivator is something that, if you do not achieve it, you might as well be dead. You’ll never become better at talking to women if you have to force yourself to do it every night. You have to truly want to do it, otherwise you’ll never achieve your true potential.

I’ve seen so many guys get frustrated with their inability to attract women and start on a journey of personal development, only to quit 3 months later when they get comfortable and start dating the first girl they hook up with. Or they lose 5-10 pounds, see a bit of a difference in the mirror, and decide it’s good enough and quit their diet there.

Self improvement isn’t a weekend retreat or an epic vacation. It isn’t even a 3 month backpacking trip across eastern Europe. Self improvement is a lifelong journey that rewards endurance and consistency.

Do some thinking and identify some pull motivators in the key areas of your life you’d like to improve. Once you know what those are, realize that pursuing them is the most important thing you can be doing with your time and don’t settle for anything less than the best. You’ll be amazed at how much easier getting what you want becomes when you focus on what really matters and put everything else on pause.

All you have to do is reframe your own motivations and see yourself moving toward a kickass future instead of moving away from a shitty past. I know which way I’d rather do things.

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The Tao of Getting Ripped

May 2, 2012 By 1 Comment

One of the best analogies I’ve seen to developing solid inner game with women is the inner mindset, the tao, of guys that are able to maintain extreme levels of leanness year-round. I walk around at ~8% bodyfat most of the year which, while not model-lean, is enough to have visible abs and turn some heads whenever I hit the beach.

The journey to maintaining this kind of leanness year-round was an essential component of how I developed my true inner game. It helped me sort out my own issues, and I’m confident it can work for you as well.

The dieter’s mindset

Let’s start with your typical dieter: someone who wakes up one day and isn’t satisfied with what he sees in the mirror.

“Man, where did these extra pounds come from? I should start dieting and working out to drop a few inches by beach season...”

So our dieting bro (DB) picks a diet – let’s say a low carb diet – and decides he’s going to stick to it for a month and see what kind of results he can get. Day 1 is great: he feels better that he’s taking action and the diet isn’t that hard to stick to. Days 2 and 3 are good as well- he’s starting to see some results which is also motivating.

Then day 4 hits. DB has depleted his body’s carb stores and he starts to feel lethargic and sluggish. He pushes through the day knowing he’s on the right track and making progress, but it’s tough. Finally, on day 5 he hangs out with some friends and they break out a bag of chips. DB rationalizes that he’s been good all week so he lets himself have a handful of chips.

But since DB has deprived himself of the carbs he really wants for the past 5 days he doesn’t stop there – on the way back from his friend’s place he hits up a Jack in the Box and orders some burgers and fries. The next day he wakes up and feels guilty that he broke his diet plan and one of 2 things will happen:

  1. Either he’ll fall off the diet “since it’s already ruined anyways” and keep eating junk foods or…
  2. He’ll redouble his efforts to make up for his late night bender and cut carbs even lower. But 2 or 3 days later he can’t handle the carb deprivation and does the same thing all over again. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

To any guys that have tried to diet in the past, does this sound at all familiar? This is why 80% of dieters regain the weight they lost and then some to ultimately ended up worse-off than when they started.

So where did DB fail?

He had a plan, and it looked like he was going to see it through, but got derailed. DB knows that dieting is important- for both his health and physical attractiveness- but he can’t seem to stick to the plan no matter what he does.

DB’s problem is that he used the word “diet” in the first place. Saying you’re going on a diet implies it’s something you’re just doing for a period of time to lose a few pounds. After the diet is over most dieters return to the same old shitty eating habits that made them overweight in the first place. All they’ve done is successfully transplanted a fat person’s mindset into a thin person’s body. It’s only a matter of time until that inner voice wins out and undoes all the hard work put in during the diet.

Now imagine for a moment you were an athlete that was naturally ripped year round, and imagine one day you woke up to find that you had somehow gained 20 pounds of fat overnight. Besides shock at what had happened, your first thought would probably be to get right back on track and keep doing the activities and habits that made you ripped in the first place. It wouldn’t take much effort to lose the weight, because in your mind you’re already 6% body fat despite what the mirror tells you. All you have to do is keep acting like your usual ripped self and you’d eventually lose the weight.

Which guy are you: the inner one or the outer one?

Are you starting to see the power your mindset has over your actions?

The path to becoming THAT guy we all want to be isn’t a 30 day diet or workout routine. It’s a total mindset shift that can take months or years to achieve. The beauty is, you can achieve this mindset in one area of your life and watch as the other areas of your life also start to improve.

I originally started lifting weights for shallow reasons- I only wanted to be more attractive to women. I was trying to get ripped to improve my external value and get more women to like me for my looks. But because I was doing it for other people instead of doing it for myself, I never achieved the level of success I had hoped for.

Only after working on my inner game did I see where I was going wrong with my attempts to diet, and over the past year I’ve effortlessly maintained sub-10% body fat. I went from forcing myself to stick to diet after diet to wanting to eat healthy year round and  my life has improved everywhere as a result.

There’s also that convenient side effect that I look great and feel great about myself, which is so attractive to women that it has improved my actual inner game to new unprecedented levels. I look damn good which makes women attracted to me, which in turn makes me feel comfortable in my own skin, which is even more attractive to women and so the cycle continues.

The take home point from all this is that inner game has applications far beyond meeting and picking up women. Fixing your inner game will improve every single area of your life as long as you approach it with the right mindset. Stop restricting yourself with “diets” that are bound to fail eventually and start moving toward a life you’re really excited and passionate about, and the rest will take care of itself.

Trust me.

Filed Under: featured, Fitness Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Don’t be a Criddler

May 2, 2012 By 2 Comments

What is a criddler?

It’s a phenomenon that I have consistently observed, but could never find a word for it. I feel especially entitled to define this word because I was once a criddler several years ago.

Going into college I did not regard myself as a social person, and I felt like I was not very good at making new friends.  I also felt obligated to socialize knowing that college was a great time to build a social circle and meet lots of girls. It was the perfect formula to create the ultimate criddler.

The fist time I noticed the sensation of criddling was at my first few college parties. Being a goodie two-shoes all through high school, I had no partying experience and didn’t know how to fit in at a party that mixed girls and heavy drinking. I was one of those kids used to spending all of their free nights playing hours and hours of video games in the basement. Drinking a ton of booze was easy I supposed, but I couldn’t grasp the other aspects of being social with the people around me.

As a result, I often stood around awkwardly hoping that someone would be nice enough to bring me into a conversation, and I also noticed good number of other dorky guys doing the same thing. Perhaps some of you might find this uncomfortable scenario quite familiar. Party criddlers like myself were so damn awkward we even had a difficult time talking to each other.

The criddler is someone who is both uncomfortable with themselves and their environment. As a result, people in the proximity of a criddler notice their awkwardness and become uncomfortable as well. It is a downward spiral that makes everyone increasingly uncomfortable to the point where it can shut down a whole party.

Picture This

To explain a criddler to someone unfamiliar with the term, I ask them to picture this scenario: You and a couple of friends are having a spirited conversation about something for a few minutes, and then out of the corner of your eye you notice someone you don’t really know walk up. As you and your friends carry on your conversation, the new person who you thought was going to join your little circle just stands there awkwardly not saying anything, fiddling with a zipper on their coat. When you glance over, the newcomer looks around nervously, and averts their gaze when you try to make eye contact.

Criddlers can also be found alone or in loosely scattered groups with their backs against the wall at a bar or club. They generally have a sullen or blank facial expression looking as if they would like to mind their own business. It could make you question why these dudes are in a place where people should be trying to have fun and socialize with each other. If they are average guys, they are at the bar or club trying to get laid, obviously; but these criddlers are failing miserably at this venture.

Criddlin isn't a good look guys

Almost all criddlers out there have no idea they are doing anything wrong, but the awkwardness they emanate slowly bleeds the fun and enjoyment out of a social occasion. Girls are slightly more harsh, and commonly refer to criddlers as ‘creepers.’ To a small, attractive female, a dude silently lumbering up next to her and looking around nervously can be quite creepy indeed. The girl immediately goes into defensive mode not knowing what this guy’s intentions are and usually assumes the worst.

To help you get over your criddling ways here is how I fixed my own criddling problem:

Observe Criddling Behavior

Next time you go to a bar take a look around and see if you can spot the criddlers, if its a busy night you can usually find at least one or two. Perhaps you may even observe some criddling behavior in yourself in these types of social situations.  Don’t worry, discovering your own criddler behavior like I did is the first step to solving your problem,  and remember that as with most inner-game improvement exercises practicing self-awareness is key.

Practice Good Body Language

There are many reasons why people criddle, but it usually boils down to two main things: insecurity and a lack of self-awareness. When we don’t feel secure with ourselves for whatever reason we tend to project it through our body language. That is why the second step to fixing your criddling problem is to focus on your body language, especially in situations where you do not feel comfortable.

The first thing the chronic criddler needs to fix is their posture. Almost all criddlers I see either slouch their shoulders, or have their head and gaze pointed downward. When we are uncomfortable with our surroundings, this is the first dead giveaway to the people around us of how we are feeling. When you slouch and avert your gaze, you are signaling to others that you are nervous, lack confidence and don’t want any attention.

Next time you are in what you see as an uncomfortable social situation, imagine there is a string firmly attached to the top of your head pulling you toward the ceiling. Then, try to start focusing your gaze on the tops of people’s heads or the area just above them. Another trick is to draw your shoulder blades together, which brings your chest forward and also helps fix slouching.

When you practice good body language, people see you as part of the party instead of another lonesome criddler. Even if you feel nervous inside, embrace the feeling and accept it. Know that its alright to feel nervous and that others around you might also be feeling the same way. You may notice that as you consistently practice this good body language, some of that nervous energy starts to dissipate. This is because our body language and our emotional state are quite closely related.

When you consciously make and effort to do these things as much as possible, you will naturally start standing this way no matter what situation you find yourself in. Having a regular workout routine will also improve your body’s posture. When you exercise your muscles will align more naturally, and as a result your posture improves, especially if you are used to hunching over a desk all day like I am.

Smile

Close your eyes and think of something that makes you smile.  Now look at yourself in the mirror, and smile thinking of that same thing. This is your natural, genuine smile also known as criddling kryptonite. A smiling guy with a good posture is the antithesis of a criddler, and magnetic to women on the prowl.

Start filling your life with things that make you laugh and smile, then let your happiness show through your facial expression. Then, start to seek out friends that are generally positive, happy and comfortable in some of the social situations you find unnerving. Start mirroring and embracing their positive energy while focusing on having a good time over anything else.

If you look like you’re having a great time through smiles and laughter, the other people around you might want a piece of the action and come over to introduce themselves.

There have been entire books written on practicing magnetic body language, so its not something you are going to perfect overnight. But through time, practice and determination practicing the things above will help rid yourself of most of the criddler syndrome.

Banter

This is the last critical step to sending your nasty criddling tendencies into oblivion. For some, this is the most difficult part, but with enough practice anyone can get good at banter. Banter is another word for small talk, and it is the ideal way to strike up a conversation and start making friends with someone you don’t know.

Keep in mind that banter usually covers small, trivial topics that are easy to relate to and often have a healthy dose of humor. The best way to learn banter is to learn from the people who are good at it. Notice how good actors banter in movies and TV shows. Better still, find a person in your own life who is great at bantering and observe them closely.

Practice banter everywhere, not just in the high-stress, loud, sexually charged, drunken atmosphere of a bar or club. Start bantering with the old lady at the check out stand in the grocery store, or someone in line with you at a movie theater. Whenever you are out in town running errands there are usually plenty of opportunities to start bantering with a stranger. Of course always remember your anti-criddling eye contact, posture and smile as you banter with people.

After you embrace these techniques and practice them regularly you’ll find yourself criddlin much less. By practicing your anti-criddling skills wherever you are, they will become a reflex. Don’t worry if you still catch yourself criddling every once in a while. 98% of guys out there are guilty of criddling, and even the most socially fluent dudes have their criddler moments including myself.

For me, discovering that I was being a criddler was the first step I took on my long road to fixing my Inner Game. A hardcore criddler usually has many aspects of their Inner Game they need to work on before they can rid themselves of this very common problem.

Nonetheless, if I was able to evolve to the confident guy I am today from the massive criddler I used to be Freshman year of college, I believe anyone can fully decriddafy themselves when they decide to take action.

 

 

Filed Under: featured, Social Dynamics

Inner vs Outer Game

April 30, 2012 By 1 Comment

Okay guys, real talk.

What do you think it takes to attract the woman of your dreams? I mean what it REALLY takes…

Good looks? Social status? A sense of humor? Being sensitive? Money?

The REAL secret to attracting women: just be Brad Pitt.

Everyone has that one friend who seems to be good with women everywhere he goes, and on the surface it may seem like he has one or more of those areas figured out. He might be really good looking, or have a high paying job, or he might be that funny guy that makes people laugh.

A lot of guys will look at that and say “okay, if I can just make some more money or if I had 6-pack abs girls would be all over me.” This line of thinking couldn’t be further from the truth in what it takes to ACTUALLY attract women.

Yin and Yang

All the traits I listed above would fall under the category of “outer game.” Outer game is any sort of ability, technique, or something you have that makes you more appealing to women. A lot of pick up methods focus explicitly on outer game- what to say to a girl, or how to act around women in specific situations.

Outer game is a major component of getting good with women, no doubt about it, but it isn’t the complete picture. Unfortunately, it’s also where most guys stop when it comes to learning to attract women. It doesn’t help that a lot of the products and methods out there trying to help guys focus solely on outer game.

“Text a girl these 3 things to make her wildly attracted to you.”

“Use social proof to find the girl of your dreams.”

“5 sex tips to keep a girl coming back for more.”

etc. etc.

It makes for better marketing to say “use these 3 quick tips for overnight success with women.” But I GUARANTEE that any guy who is naturally good with women doesn’t even remotely think like this. They aren’t up in their heads thinking “okay I’m through the attraction building phase, time to get into comfort and start kino-escalating.”

Outer game is a additive process where you add stories and routines and gadgets and things to your life in order to make it seem more appealing to women. And that sort of makes sense- in order to get the girl of your dreams you need to make yourself into her male counterpart right? Yes and no.

To use an analogy: if you build a grandiose mansion on a shaky foundation it can collapse into a pile of rubble at the first sign of pressure. The guys over at the Art of Charm are a little more blunt about it:

It’s like putting whipped cream on shit.

Inner game is that foundation. If your inner game is weak then no matter what you add to your personality, women will still see you for what you really are. Even if you’re a well-paid executive with tons of connections, if you aren’t comfortable in your own skin women will notice. In that scenario, the only women you’ll attract are gold diggers and they’re only really attracted to that big bulge in your pants- your wallet.

Inner game isn’t about the little stuff like what to say or how to hold your body; it’s the much bigger picture of your relationship with yourself. Guys with solid inner game don’t worry about what to say to a girl because no matter what he says, he’s comfortable enough with himself that she can’t help but be attracted. Guys who are truly happy with their lives naturally exude warmth and confidence that women naturally pick up on, and it absolutely cannot be faked with some technique or pickup line.

This is why after I worked on my inner game with women I started getting better results in every aspect of my life, from getting promoted at work to getting stronger and ripped in the gym.

Unfortunately, most methods out there don’t teach inner game because it takes real time and effort. Inner game isn’t something you just wake up and have. You need to take an honest look at where you are in life and work on your weaknesses. Luckily, inner game IS learnable. If you have all kinds of negative thoughts and weak inner game you’re not a lost cause. I didn’t start to realize this until I was in my mid-20′s, and I know a lot of guys who didn’t realize it until they were in their 30′s!

You won’t change your inner game in a day, but today is as good a day as any to begin the journey. Are you ready?

Filed Under: featured, inner game Tagged With: , , , , , ,